Published 10 November 2024 at 08.04
Foreign. A senior adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump says the new US administration will focus on achieving peace in Ukraine and not on helping Kiev regain territories occupied by Russia. And the Ukrainian government is being advised not to be pushy about wanting Crimea back and the like.
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It is Bryan Lanza, a strategist within the Republican Party, who in a longer interview with the BBC says that the Trump administration will ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a “realistic vision for peace”.
– But if Zelensky comes to the negotiating table and says that we can only have peace if we get Crimea back, then he shows us that he is not serious, says Lanza in the interview and underlines:
– Crimea is gone.
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and eight years later launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today, they have occupied areas in the eastern parts of the country, but the war is still ongoing along the entire front and earlier this fall, losses on both sides exceeded one million wounded or dead, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Donald Trump has consistently has said his priority is to end the war and reduce what he describes as a humanitarian disaster and a burden on the United States as well.
However, he has yet to reveal how he intends to do this, and is likely to competing advice on Ukraine's future from his various advisors.
Lanza, who has been Trump's political adviser since the 2016 campaign, did not mention the territories in eastern Ukraine, but he said that retaking Crimea from Russia is unrealistic and that this is “not the goal of the United States”.
Lanza said he has enormous respect for the Ukrainian people. But he also announced that the US priority now is “peace and stopping the killing”.
– What we will say to Ukraine is: What do you see as a realistic vision for peace? It is not a vision of victory, but a vision of peace. And let's start having an honest discussion.
Trump is expected to handle peace talks with a close circle of advisers once in office.
An anonymous National Security Council adviser, who previously served under Trump, told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday:
– Anyone, no matter how high up in Trump's circle, who claims to have a different view or a more detailed insight into his plans for Ukraine knows simply not what they talk about.
They said the president-elect “makes his own security policy decisions” and that he often does so “on the fly”.
Trump spoke with Zelenskyi after his election victory and billionaire Elon Musk also took part in the conversation. What was said between the parties, however, has not emerged.
Democrats have accused Trump of aligning with Russian President Vladimir Putin and warned that his approach to the war amounts to a capitulation on the part of Ukraine, which will endanger the security of all of Europe in the long term.
Last month, Zelensky presented a “victory plan” that completely ruled out giving up Ukrainian territories, including Crimea.
During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in a day,” but he never gave any details of how he intended to do it.
A report written by two of his former national security chiefs in May recommended that the United States continue to supply Ukraine with weapons, but condition the support on Kiev opening peace talks with Russia.
Ukraine should not give up hope of regaining everything its territory from Russian occupation, but the country should negotiate based on current front lines, according to the report.
Earlier this week, Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory and said that Trump's claim that he can help to end the war in Ukraine “at least deserves attention”.
Lanza also criticized the expensive but nervous support that the Biden-Harris administration and the majority of EU countries have given Ukraine since Russia's invasion in February 2022.
A support that, according to Lanza, combines the worst of two worlds: On the one hand high costs for advanced equipment and partly various restrictions and conditions that will prevent the weapons from being used effectively, as it could force Russia to go to war with European countries and the USA.
– The reality is that the EU countries and Biden have not given Ukraine the ability or the weapons required to win the war from the very beginning, and then they have not lifted the restrictions so that Ukraine can win, he says.
< p>Hope now rests with Sweden, Estonia and a number of other EU countries with limited military capabilities, which have made commitments to help Ukraine win the war against Russia on its own.
– We shall support Ukraine so long as required and also its right to regain its territorial integrity, Defense Minister Pål Jonson (M) told SVT's interview program 30 Minuter at the end of October.
He also promised that Sweden is ready to help if the Ukrainian government wants to take Crimea back.
– Crimea belongs to Ukraine, Donbass belongs to Ukraine, says Jonson.
Achieving this without American help, however, may be difficult. The United States has been Ukraine's largest arms supplier with arms deliveries worth SEK 550 billion since the war began in 2022. The country also has the manufacture of, among other things, advanced air defense systems that have no European equivalent outside of Russia.
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